My short story, “Harlow’s Fairytale” is coming very soon to a Weird Romance anthology near you.

In alternative writing news, today I was fooling around with an experiment at work, to interact with with players via in-character Twitter roleplaying. Many personalities. I had an awkward, teenage love spat with myself. This is always stressful. But the makeup sex is fantastic.

Tonight, I saw Bright September play live, in a darkened room. This is the song I particularly liked, “Sleepless Lullaby.”

I’ve been under the sway of intense mood swings lately. That’s not me. Not usually.

My moods are steady. “Distant” and “detached” are not quite the right words…but they might be second or third cousins to the right word. I’m usually the other end of the barometer—people say things like, “You’re stressed too? We’re doomed!” I have my own peculiar set of triggers—we all do—but a lot of the day-to-day (and even not so day-to-day) stuff, that sets many people on edge, rolls off me like water droplets.

Not so, lately.

I know people that swing on these moods. Tempestuous as they get, they seem practiced. I’m not. I’m stumbling like a toddler with an assault shotgun—doing all of those predictable things (even indulgent blog posts!). Part of me is present, going through it. Part of me is removed, fascinated, watching myself play with these new, terrible toys—figuring out which bits might be useful for writing fiction—shouting out commentary.

“Wait, you’re not really going to do that, are you? That is so cliche!”

My instinct is to be outwardly pleasant.

I can’t tell if this is adding new depths to my personality…or just undermining me.

Right. I’m done with it for now. Time to kill the little darlings. Time to get back to shop talk, the craft, the laboratory.

140 Characters In Search of a Story

If I was training someone to write video game text, I would have them write twitter fic. These are stories in 140 characters or less. It’s a sort of narrative haiku in prose. More than the finished product, it’s a good exercise. Write one twitter story a day. It strengthens certain muscles, tightens economy of words. Cramming a story into an impossible space is a logic puzzle. It teaches problem-solving skills. You’ll find a way.

It is all about using the spaces between words, the implied story, showing dots and letting the reader imagine the connections. Want an example? Ernest Hemingway wrote one:

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

See that? He gives you six words and lets you do all the heavy lifting. But I know what you’re really asking: “Hemingway wrote twitter fic nearly a hundred years before twitter was invented?”

I can only deduce that Hemingway forced Nicola Tesla to take him back in time so he could punch out a T-Rex—igniting a most unlikely bromance and a series of adventures through all time and space. It’s the only reasonable assumption.

Back to twitter fiction. Write one story a day. I’m starting up again. It’s like doing writer crunches. In game writing you have to learn to make do with limited space and arbitrary constraints. Making do is nice, better still if you can reconcile—make the limitations your own—use them to force a line of thought more creative than you might have conjured on a limitless canvas.

Get a twitter account. Check out the #vss hashtag to see what others are coming up with and post your own. You might find it addictive. It’s a level of instant gratification that writing does not often allow.

Not sure how to start? Try summing up a novel you’ve read in 140 characters. This is also a nice way to jot down ideas you have for larger stories. The advantage here is that the note is already put into narrative form—I find this sometimes gives the idea a certain amount of pent-up velocity when I come back to it. If jotting a story note is like planting a seed—shaping that note into a micro-ficiton is like planting that seed in a packet of nutrients and miracle growth.

Here are seven examples of my own:

She broke up with me at recess. I worked so hard – it was so good, my valentine. The coronary arteries were perfectly to scale.

I of course speak of that writer (nick-named “Icky”), gonzo occultist, bass-playing exorcist, & buggerer of sisters. Maybe you even remember one of his old bands: Vestigial Limb, Necro-Ophelia, Rambunctious Homunculus, Azathoth’s Taint, or Banana Hammock. If you’ve read Strangeness in the Proportion, then you have encountered him (perhaps in more places than you realize). His exploits have built up quite a mythos. Some know these little apocryphal nuggets as THE ICKY FACTS.

“Am stupidly happy that @IckyKnockactually exists. Is it true he challenged Satan for a gold banjo and Satan crapped himself?”

Like any folklore, it’s hard to know which Icky Facts have a kernel of truth, but the story @Suitov mentioned is part of the urban legend—though there is some controversy as to whether it was a banjo or a ukulele, if it was gold or silver, and whether or not it was a music contest or a two-man circle jerk.

I myself recently stumbled upon an apocryphal tale involving Icky Knock, a bottle of tequila, and eldritch fertility rites in a dark woods. There are those who say a full third of Shub-Niggurath’s thousand young bare a suspicious resemblance to Icky Knock, but the bastard pays no child support.

@Suitov shared some Icky Facts that I had not uncovered in my research. Including:

*The Loch Ness Monster used to live in Lake Michigan until Icky Knock wanted to have a swim.

*IckyKnock once told a Hound of Tindalos to “go sit in the corner” and look what happened.

*When asked about the old adage about shoe size and penis size, Bigfoot said “If it were true, Icky Knock would wear canoes.”

What Icky Knock stories have you folks heard? Please share.

Do you really want to know the truth about Ichabod Knock?

Icky was very helpful in researching my book—particularly the bits of paranormal lore of Chicago. But…things have gotten weird. Icky jokes that he invented me as a character, as part of some experiment. He says he kept a child in a ritual circle in the basement, constantly clapping, just to maintain me during the novel writing process. That’s silly. He says if I turn away from the computer, there will be nothing there. Ridiculous. I haven’t turned away yet. I’m scared. I’m not turning away. I’m real. I’m fucking real!

I let another week slide by between my half-time break in the recap of all that happened during the radio silence—which means more stuff transpired—so let’s quicken pace to get back to the near present, lest we forever mire ourselves two skips n’ a jump behind the Now…

OK…I’m not even going to organize this with conventional chronology. I mean, eventually our molecules are going to separate and information is going to break down and dissolve—it’s individual moments that are important—so screw organization, I’ll just sloppily jot this down as randomly and quickly as it comes to my brain and fingers.

But to give it a structure, let’s lean on the visual and you can participate in a metaphor with me. Picture a funky deck of cards. Each card is an individual moment-memory-thingy, a Tarot of my recent events in Oslo. See the deck? Solid in your mind? I’m shuffling it…I try and impress you with a nifty feat of shuffling prestidigitation…and bungle the whole thing at an adorably crucial moment and—SNAP—cards everywhere. 52 Pick-up!

What do I grab first?

…ah…it’s…

*The Ace of Plastic Bags*Walking home from the subway, one night, with the Japanese lyrics of a song about a giant robot from a Godzilla movie stuck in my head…I noticed it…yes…the plastic bag was following me.

Through an odd confluence of wind, the plastic bag was more or less hovering, darting a few feet this way and that, at the level of my head, neither falling nor blowing away, in a kind of American Beauty sort of moment. It followed me for several paces like this…

…so I punched it in the face.

Don’t look at me like that. You have to be stern. Otherwise you’re the soft-knuckled fool in the city that all the plastic bags follow and swarm.

*The Nine of Swine*Had a bug. May or may not have been the Swine Flu. They take that seriously in these parts. I’ve never had a job demand I stay home sick for a week. I wasn’t that sick. I was ready to beg them to let me back. I was in my old, temporary apartment–four white walls in a cramped room and no internet. Got a little reading done. Went a little mad. Had to go to the doctors to get a note so I could get sick leave. They made me wear a mask and took me to the infectious room where other sad sops in masks sat. Boredom was the worst part.

Give a flu a name and people go nuts.…and the next card is…oh…that is encouraging…it’s…

*The Two of Positive Press*Sometimes, late at night, I Google myself.

Hey, don’t look at me that way! It’s just an adult game of Peek-a-boo—a bit of reality affirmation—if I type my name (“Marco!”) and something answers back (“Polo!”), I still exist.

I stumbled upon a VERY NICE REVIEW of my podcasted story, “Blood, Snow, and Sparrows”. [Hmmm…that link does not appear to be working…but trust me, it was sweet review. –THE MANAGEMENT]

I got another bit of nice press via Twitter. Yes, Twitter. I know. Yes, I hopped on that. Look, as near as I can tell, the Cult of the Trendy and the Cult of the Anti-Trendy pretty much worship in the same way: they let the actions and opinions of others dictate their actions and opinions. I don’t have time for pretensions (or anti-pretensions), only enthusiasms (the difference between pretensions and enthusiasm is the same difference between the nervousness of a high-stakes investor driving his new sports car, wondering if it’s sending the right image to the world—and the pure joy of a kid riding her sparkling new bike in the mud).

Anyway—TANGENT ALERT—people are still figuring out what to do with these new communications technologies. We’re making it up as we go. And some people are using Twitter to challenge themselves to write ultra-ultra short bits of micro-fiction (whole stories in 140 characters or less). Inspired by my fellows, I wrote up a dozen or so over the last week (fiction stories I make up are marked by a #TCTC hash and not to be confused with the bits of my real life that I make up).

*The New Apartment*I am now situated in my new apartment. I like it. It’s cheaper than I thought I’d have to spend. I get along well with my flatmate and his two Italian greyhounds (a mother and her puppy). It’s in an old, charming apartment building and not an ugly new one…and so has high ceilings (which I appreciate after my last cramped room), good space, and my bedroom has a wonderfully large window. My new bed is a year old and apparently belonged to a diplomat prior. I asked my new bed if it would write me references and it agreed. There is a tree outside my window, and I’m at branch level, and it’s close enough to hear the wind-through-the-leaves sound that trees make if I open said window. There’s also a spooky basement that you have to duck down to walk through to get to the laundry machine—there’s groaning stories down there.…next card…another Major Arcana…

I had the place to myself. Lit bright in the front, near the church, but dark-dark in the back and full of…atmosphere. Now, I am an atmosphere fiend. Some people have chocolate. I have atmosphere. And atmosphere is not a spectator sport. You get what you give and I can create quite a bit with quite a little…at least for myself (First rule of Josh: ENTERTAIN JOSH…if others get entertained too, so much the better). I did not have to put forth much…this was a smorgasbord of lush, creamy, creepy-bittersweet moods.

I went back, a few night’s later for a more extended stay. I wandered about and when my eyes adjusted and I got brave enough, I visited the dark back of the cemetery by the angel statue and a leaky well. Then the place just seemed charming and inviting and I listened to the last hour of the audio reading of Neil Gaiman’s, The Graveyard Book, smoked rum-dipped cigarillos, and explored every inch of the place (or tried to…I’m sure there are more hidden inches to find).

It was a good…moment…very in the moment…no future or past practicalities to muddle the mind. And the end to one of my favorite recently read novels was all the more poignant.

I bottle particularly good vintages of atmosphere and save it for later.

…next card…oh…it’s a good one…it conveys wandering souls and a fool’s prerogative…it is…

*The Ferry Fatuous*I’m all about the cheap entertainment and the ferry to the various islands in the fjord of Oslo is free (or at least…I already have a monthly travel pass and it’s covered on that). So I decided to X a few more spots in my guide book. I like the ocean and I like boats and it’s nice to know I can take a boat ride whenever I like.

My target was Hovedoya, the first island, but I stayed on the boat for the round trip (past Bleikoya, Gressholmen, and Lindoya) and hit Hovedoya on the way back.

The island is mostly forest preserve with a few boating places and snack shops on some of the shore. I was in search of the ruins of a 12 century monastary that I read were there—wasn’t sure exactly where—but I found it pretty quickly.

Another spot I definitely liked. Very peaceful. Just a small trickle of visitors coming through here and there. Sat on an old well, covered by boards with a slight crack through them—and I wondered what they were keeping down there…

Mostly, the ruins are just free standing walls that from a sort of ceiling-less maze. But one of the turrets was still standing and (since there wasn’t any sign telling me not to) I went up the stone steps…which led to a little space on the second floor about the size of a really good tree fort. A little window allowed me to look outside. I sat there for the better part of an hour, undisturbed.

I’ll have to remember the spot when the weather gets warmer again…I think it’ll serve as a good reading nook.

The plan is now for more streamlined teams and—if things get richer and fatter again—to hire back those on enforced leave.

Friday I moved up to the 4th floor. Where once I was in a dark, barren corner (by myself) I’m now around friendly faces (and slowly learning the finer points of socializing again) have a window view, and even a plant. Granted, I distract easily, but I plan on trying really hard to…hmmmm….what?

Well…there’s probably more cards on the floor, but what say we cal ourselves caught up and start a new hand, yeah?

PS – This week was Banned Books Week. I was originally against banning books…but now I see the perhaps unintentional genius behind it. What better way to get our children to read than to say, "That? Oh…you don’t want that…that’s too dangerous…"